


Lavender and Rosemary

by delazeur



Series: That Other Spirit Healer [2]
Category: Dragon Age - All Media Types
Genre: Anders Needs a Hug, Anders joins the Warden instead, Angst, Canonical Character Death, Coping, Demon Outbreak, In a Supply Closet, Is Kind of a Cockblock, Like pretty much always?, M/M, Oral Sex, Wynne Died at Ostagar, like you do
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-05-25
Updated: 2014-05-25
Packaged: 2018-01-26 13:14:22
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,336
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1689611
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/delazeur/pseuds/delazeur
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In which Anders tries to cope with the time he spent in solitary, Niall is awkward, and things end rather poorly.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Lavender and Rosemary

**Author's Note:**

> In this AU Wynne doesn't survive Ostagar, and Anders is recruited by the Warden in her place.

All the mage robes had a certain smell. There was no variance in how they were washed, how they were stored in communal clothes presses, how the same herbs that kept away moths and weevils were layered among them.

Every mage was allowed to keep one robe and one spare, three sets of underthings (smalls plus chemise), and one set of shoes. When the robes or smalls or chemise was soiled they were given to the tranquil in the laundry and a new one was issued. These robes did not belong to the mages that wore them.

They all smelled the same, all fit poorly in the same ways, too long, too short, tight in the shoulders or the chest or the hips depending on the body that they covered.

“Anders.”

One had to get very, very close indeed to smell the difference in the bodies that the robes, all scented with the same soap and the same herbs, covered.

“A-aah-Anders!”

He was close enough now, nose buried in the crease between thigh and balls while his tongue slid over the skin, taught and pebbled under his lips, and he inhaled and sucked and nuzzled. His free hand came up to push the legs farther apart so that he could shift his mouth lower, under the sack, licking a stripe along the darker vein under the pale skin, dipping as far back as he could reach while kneeling in a supply closet with Niall standing above him, back pressed against the door.

The skirt of the robes hung heavy and too warm on the back of his neck, muffling the sound of Niall’s panting, making it almost as anonymous as the scent of the fabric, the slide of his spit-slicked hand over the cock he’d sucked insistently until it was aching-hard. All of these things were interchangeable parts, any one of a half-dozen dicks he’d sucked, let fuck his mouth in the last weeks, looking for something that would wash away the taste of stone and mildew and silence.

He wished Niall would pull his hair, hard and certain the way Alim had. But everything with Niall was as awkward the fifth time as it was the first. Not that a little awkwardness ever stopped Anders.

He drew the line up the underside of Niall’s cock, tongue finding the slit in the head, dipping into the welling fluid, salty and bitter and cherished, that flavor of another body. He closed his mouth over the glans and sucked gently and when Niall bucked toward him, one hand scrabbling under his robe to find the back of Anders’ head, nudging in an odd staccato that was more distracting than encouraging, he opened further and took the stiff, hot length all the way down until his nose was again buried in skin that smelled like something other than those damn robes.

Each press into his throat was greeted with a swallow, each withdrawal a careful swirl of his tongue and passage of breath through his nose. One hand closed over the sharp edge of Niall’s hip, trying to urge him to thrust up into his mouth, but he barely got more than a stuttering nudge. His other hand found his own erection, squeezing through the wool of his robes to ease some of the ache.

“Anders!” The urgent note of Niall’s hiss was at odds with the way his body stilled, hands suddenly pushing against his head, hips shifting and trying to squirm up the door behind him.

“What?” He sounded waspish, he knew he did. But after six solid hours of idiot children failing to manifest the simplest of Creation spells and the cold, windowless walls of his room waiting to swallow him, he had just wanted a little bit of something, _someone_ else. “Did Owain sneeze out there again? Is a Templar walking by?” He leaned forward, trying to kiss Niall’s rapidly softening dick. Andraste’s ass.

“Stop! I heard… I heard screaming.”

“What are you on about?” As he stood his knee clicked, aching from the cold of the stone floor, and he leaned close, letting his taller frame press Niall against the door, pretending to listen while he pushed his face against the side of Niall’s throat. For a moment there was only silence except for their breathing and the scent of Niall’s clean sweat where his hair was damp and curling against his neck. The taste of salt and soap under his tongue. It was just as the other man’s eyes started to close, relenting against the teeth and lips on his neck, the sucking on his earlobe, when Anders heard it too.

There was screaming. _Screaming_. And the harsh clanging of armor as it rattled at a dead run past the closet door. “What in the void?” He jerked back from the door and his eyes met Niall’s, both sets fixed and wide. “Was there a… Harrowing today?”

It shouldn’t matter. Anders had never heard of a Harrowing spilling out of the chamber. That was the point of it having its own room, bound by runes and ringed by Templars, but really what other than an abomination could cause that much screaming?

That was the wrong question, and the answers were worse. Many abominations. Dozens of blood mages. Enthralled Templars grabbing apprentices by their hair and hauling them off, enchanters split open by swords or lightning, and the way the walls bled and writhed and there was so much screaming.

“Go, downstairs, see who else you can find in the library!” Niall’s hands were damp with sweat and there was blood on his face as he shoved Anders toward the door that looked like it was being swallowed by a maw of melted flesh. His fingers slid from Anders’ grasp easily as he stumbled away.

“What are you doing?”

“Litany of Adrala.” Niall was panting. “Alim and I are going to find it in. Irving’s office?”

They were leaving him alone. Why were they leaving him alone? “I’ll come--”

“No! People are hurt. And someone should know where we went… that there’s hope. We’ll find you when we can.” Alim Surana’s green eyes were fierce and his quick fingers, the ones that felt so steady when they tangled in Anders’ hair, plucked at Niall’s sleeve.

This was wrong. He was older, he was a stronger mage, he could help, but instead he let them leave and turned and ran. That was what he did, wasn’t it? He was Anders, and Anders always ran.

Later he told himself he could have run. Should have. There had to have been a moment before the doors were shut and barred when he could have made it out of the Tower and away, finally, _finally_ really away. Instead he found himself in one of the apprentice dormitories with Petra staring up at him, little Emmett’s arms twined around her neck and sobbing, and instead of going he stayed to help her organize the little ones. Try to guide them out.

How he’d railed and shouted and made the stones of the Tower rattle around him when they found that bastard, that bloody bastard, Greagoir had shut them in to die.

Niall never found them. Instead, Anders and Ellamina found him, his body stiff and cold, forgotten, just as he’d always said would be best, hadn’t he? If mages were just left alone by the world to be forgotten, and there he was, forgotten until the moment when Anders looked down at him from Min’s side, hand too numb to feel her fingers climbing into his and clinging.

Anders tried to remember the smell of sweat and skin, the tang of salt and semen on his tongue, mixed with the scent of wool and lavender and rosemary and old dust. He tried to remember the things that made him forget the silence and the dark, but they were pushed aside, blotted with the spreading stain of Uldred’s madness, and all that was left was sulfur and blood and screaming.


End file.
